Debate contribution: Conversion Practices (Criminalisation) Bill: Second Stage
Debate contribution by Mr Eóin Tennyson on .
- MLA
- Mr Eóin Tennyson
- Party at the time
- Alliance Party
- Date
- 28 September 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Private Members' Business
- Heading
- Conversion Practices (Criminalisation) Bill: Second Stage
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5762697
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I thank the Member for giving way. Maybe it will reassure him to know that he would be as entitled to get up in the Chamber and read the passage that he has just read after the Bill passed as he was before, because, first, it is not a conversion practice; it is not targeted at any individual. It is reading scripture, so there is clearly no intent around that. The test in the legislation is not whether it causes offence. People say lots of things that I find unsavoury or offensive. They are not criminal offences. The test in the Bill is whether the conduct took place, it was therapy or coercive behaviour — that is neither — and it caused physical or psychological harm. Causing offence really does not have that much to do with it.
138 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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